The Unseen (39 page)

“
That’s kind of inconvenient for me—”

“
Enat Ethiopia Cafe, seven o’ clock.” Tamila hung up.

Cassidy stared at her phone, stunned and worried.  There had been no catching-up pleasantries.  Tamila had sounded scared, and that worried her.  She saved Tamila’s number, then hurried to get ready for work.  If Cassidy was going to take a long dinner break to meet Tamila miles away, it would help if she showed up early to work this afternoon.

Barb gave Cassidy a ride to the tattoo parlor, since there was a drizzling rain, and Cassidy told her about Tamila’s call.

“
Can you come with me?” Cassidy asked. “Reese and Tamila
both
showing up after all this time is freaking me out.”

“
Me, too.  I don’t know if I can get off work.  If not, you can borrow my car.  Do you think she’s talking about that cult your brother’s into?”

“
Probably,” Cassidy said. “If she knows anything about them, I want to hear.  I can’t find anything on the Web.  My brother’s really straightened out since he got involved with them, though.”

“
Maybe that’s just on the surface.  Could be a prelude to something worse.”

“
I just want to know what she has to say.”

Cassidy was anxious throughout the afternoon, barely able to focus at work.  The day grew dark outside and the rain grew heavy, which made business slower than usual.  Her brain felt itchy.  In her rush to get to work, she’d forgotten to have a drink first, so she saw the ugly transparent worms and bugs everywhere.

She left at twenty minutes until seven, telling Jarvis her break might run long, which only made him shake his head and purse his lips.  Cassidy knew he wanted to fire her, and maybe was already petitioning the owner about it, but she had to look out for her brother.

Barb was swamped at work and couldn’t get away, but she tossed Cassidy her car keys and wished her luck.

Cassidy drove north through pounding rain and slow traffic.  Her right leg ached more than usual, and she thought of how old people with arthritis complained about the rain making their joints hurt.

The Ethiopian restaurant was a freestanding building on a stretch of road with lots of chain-link fences, concrete parking lots, and nondescript little warehouses overlooking a stretch of weedy railroad tracks.  Cassidy parked by a large mural painted in warm tones on the front of the restaurant, depicting a woman cooking in a pot over an open fire while three more people sat waiting at a table, all of them sheltered by a straw roof.

Cassidy stepped inside, breathing in the aroma of simmering ginger, peppers, onions, and exotic spices.  Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day.

Tamila waved at her from a small table with a bright red cloth.  She had a different look from how she’d been in high school—her long, flowing, straightened hair was now cut shorter and twisted into little braids, and she wore glasses instead of contacts.  She was dressed in a black business suit with a long skirt, a sharp contrast to Cassidy’s ripped, paint-spattered jeans and black crop top embellished with pink-skull polka dots.

“Hi, Tamila,” Cassidy said, while Tamila stood to embrace her. “You look great.”

“
So do you.” Tamila pulled back, and they looked at each other, smiling as childhood memories flickered across both their brains. “It’s good to see you.”

“
It’s been a long time.”  Cassidy sat down with her under black and white photographs of Emperor Haile Selassie.  Cassidy recognized him because Bob Marley and the other Rastafarians had believed he was the messiah;
Ras Tafari
meant “King Tafari,” his name before he was declared emperor of Ethiopia. “What were you saying about Kieran?”

“
It’s complicated.  What do you know about this cult called the Church of First Light?”

Cassidy sighed.  That again. “I know he’s involved with it.  My mom doesn’t seem too worried, though.  Apparently it’s his least destructive phase since middle school.”

“I came across some information about them recently,” Tamila said. “I’m working at a firm in Buckhead this summer before I go back for my second year of law school.”

“
Second year?” Cassidy did the math. “So you finished college in three years?”

“
It’s easy if you stay in school every summer.  Anyway, we had this situation where we helped a certain high net worth client search for his daughter.  Fifteen-year-old rich girl runs away to avoid rehab, that kind of situation.  At one point, she stayed at a First Light mission in Austin, Texas, for a couple of days.  These missions welcome runaways and delinquents; easy marks for recruiting, I guess, young people with no direction.  That turned out to be a dead end.  The girl didn’t actually join the cult, but something about it gave me a very strong, very bad feeling.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I kept researching.”

“
What happened to the girl?”

“
She turned up in Portland, Oregon, strung out on heroin.  She’s in a platinum drug treatment center now.  Her parents are worth a quarter of a billion dollars, so her life’s going to have whatever happiness money can buy.  The girl’s not the point—the cult is what we need to talk about.”

A dark-skinned, grandmotherly waitress arrived with hot tea made from coffee leaves.  Cassidy was unfamiliar with Ethiopian cuisine, so she took Tamila’s advice and ordered the kei wott, described on the menu as a kind of beef stew with a barbecue sauce.

“What did you find out about them?” Cassidy asked when the waitress left.

“
The cult?  First, it’s not easy to learn about them.  They’re secretive and small, but very well-funded.  The founder—they call him their prophet—is a guy named Eli Bernham.  Another super-rich kid.  He created it in the seventies, in California.”

“
Not the most shocking time or place for a wacky new cult.”

“
True.  They seem to recruit these kids and turn them around, send them to study finance, business, law...They go in as drifting delinquents and come out ten years later as hot young bond traders driving Porsches.  And they tithe back to the church, of course.”

“
So they change teenage thugs into douchebag yuppies,” Cassidy said, and Tamila smiled a little and nodded.  Cassidy tried to imagine her brother in a Brooks Brothers suit. “Could be worse.  I mean, that beats a mass suicide, right?”

“
Sure.  But I think there’s more happening under the surface, things most people wouldn’t even believe.  I managed to meet this girl who hangs out at the First Light youth mission here in Atlanta—it’s in a crappy old office building not far from here.  I checked the property records, and the church owns the whole building.  This girl was getting uncomfortable with all of it, and I coaxed her into talking.” Tamila hesitated, looking at her.

“
And?” Cassidy asked.  She was eager to learn more about what her brother was doing.

“
You remember what happened that night, don’t you?” Tamila whispered, leaning closer. “With Reese?”

“
Of course.”

“
This cult is into demons—they don’t call them demons, they call them ‘angels of darkness’ as opposed to ‘angels of light.’ The ‘dark’ is because they’re closer to Earth, supposedly trying to help us out—the ‘light’ angels are high above like the stars, watching us coldly, not helping humans at all.  That’s their little theology, anyway.  It’s a very complicated sort of devil worship, at its core.”

“
Devil worship?  Like in a bad horror movie from the 1980’s?”

“
Only these devils are real.  I was supposed to meet with the girl again at lunchtime today.  Her name’s Zoe, by the way, and she’s friends with your brother.  She’s mentioned him specifically.  I think she might have a crush on him.”

“
Aw.  My mom said he was probably only into this church—this cult, I mean—because of a girl.”

“
Let’s hope so.  Zoe didn’t make it today, never showed up for our meeting.  I called around, hospitals and police precincts, pretending I was her mother and couldn’t find her.  She was brought into Grady Hospital early this morning...dead on arrival.”

“
Holy shit.  What happened to her?”

“
Sudden heart failure, with no obvious cause.”

Cassidy gasped and felt herself grow cold just as the food arrived.  The wott was a stew almost as thick as hummus, redolent with hot, peppery herbs, served over slices of flatbread.  It looked delicious, but Cassidy’s appetite had just taken a serious blow.

“Are you okay?” Tamila asked. “Your whole face just bleached white.”

“
My dad,” Cassidy said. “He died the same way.  Heart failure they couldn’t explain.”

“
I asked the hospital if drugs were involved, but they didn’t find evidence of any.  And that was the last question they let me ask over the phone.  Zoe told me she’d quit drugs because the church discourages them—the ‘patron spirits’ prefer healthy, young, attractive bodies.”

“
The what spirits?” Cassidy asked.

“
If I’m reading between the lines correctly...these cult members
volunteer
for demonic possession,” Tamila said.

“
Why would they do that?”

“
Maybe because they get a Porsche out of it.  Try your wott, it’s good.” Tamila scooped up the thick stew with the bread, rolled up the edges, and held it toward Cassidy’s mouth.

“
You don’t have to feed me. I can handle it.” Cassidy smiled.

“
It’s part of Ethiopian dining.  Feeding someone else is called
gursha
, a sign of friendship.”

“
If you say so,” Cassidy opened her mouth and let Tamila hand-feed her.  The food was good despite her suddenly shrunken appetite—warm bread, spicy beef. “Do I feed you now?”

“
Of course.”

Cassidy reached over to Tamila’s plate, scooped up some misser wott, made of lentils, onions, and peppers, and gently fed it to her old friend.

“It really is good to see you,” Cassidy said. “Even if it has to be crazy like this.”

“
You, too.” Tamila returned her smile, then opened a briefcase by her chair and brought out an accordion folder with a flap tied down by string. “Here’s a copy of everything I know about the cult.  I hope it will help you talk your brother out of it.”

“
I’m calling him now.” Cassidy tried him on her cell phone, but Kieran didn’t answer.  She left an urgent message for him to call right away.

“
He’s probably at the mission.  I’ve staked it out a few times, and Kieran seems to hang out there every night,” Tamila said.

“
You said it was near here?”

“
Right down the street.”

“
We have to go get him,” Cassidy said. “You think they killed this Zoe girl for having second thoughts, don’t you?”

Tamila hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I’m not sure how, but yes.  That’s what I think.”

“And if my brother has second thoughts, they might kill him, too.  And if he
doesn’t
have second thoughts, they’ll put a demon in him?”

“
Right.”

“
What if that’s happening right now?  What if it’s tonight?  We could already be too late, Tamila!  We have to go get him.” Cassidy shoved a heap of food into her mouth as she stood.  She tossed her money on the table and hurried toward the door.

“
Wait!” Tamila caught up with her. “You’re not going alone.  I know more about these people than you do.”

“
You’ll come with me?”

“
You’re not going alone.  We should take my car, the place is a little hard to find.”

Cassidy and Tamila stepped outside and paused under the awning, preparing to dash through the rain to Tamila’s car.  Cassidy saw that the invisible parasites were everywhere now, though few of them had been hanging around when she’d arrived.

“Ready to run?” Tamila touched her key fob, and the lights of a red Mazda flashed across the parking lot as her doors unlocked.

“
Ready.” Cassidy and Tamila’s hands clasped automatically, just like when they were kids walking beside the busy highways.  They lowered their heads and charged through the rain.

As they ran toward Tamila’s car, Cassidy heard a long, high-pitched shriek from somewhere above.  She stopped to look up, squinting against the rain.

“What is it?” Tamila asked, stumbling but not releasing Cassidy’s hand.

“
You don’t hear that?”

“
Hear what?”

Cassidy finally saw the source of the sound—a thing like a rotten crow with a long, serrated beak, swooping down toward them from the black clouds above.  It was one of the parasites nobody else could see, but Cassidy had never
heard
one before.